Call of the Caribbean/Chapter 6
VI.
SANTO was nearly eighty miles in width and the Jordan well into the interior. Allowing for the winding of the river, Stuart calculated that we must paddle for fifty miles before coming to the headwaters. For this, he allowed three days, taking into consideration the strength of the current which—fortunately—was slight at present, but was bound to increase as we neared the foothills.
I could not have asked for a better companion than the boy. His enthusiasm did not suffer by the mishaps of the journey—rain and an overturned canoe. He worked willingly, in spite of the heat. And he was pleased beyond words at the aspect of the country.
The river wound through wide areas of luxuriant growth, forests of bamboos and plantains, and level, grassy plains. At times we were in the thick growth of the bush, colored plants glittering in our faces, wonderfully hued birds swinging about the treetops. I began to understand why the Spanish explorer had thought that the interior of Santo would provide a second paradise.
It was the beginning of the third day that I noticed a change in Johnny Gorai. The islander had been sullen at first, and after the first night had done his best to leave us, being prevented by an occasional meaning display of our rifles.
Now he began to urge us to return. Finding this useless he became moody, and remained close to us and the canoes. I guessed that we were beyond the limits of the coast natives’ villages and that he was in a strange country. As he might be useful to us, I had no intention of allowing him to slip away. And, indeed, at this point he seemed to have no desire to do so.
Yet I was puzzled by his moodiness. We were in the midst of a glorious forest where food and light abounded. We had seen nothing of any human occupants of the place. As we worked past the foothills, winding between verdant slopes heavy with the perfume of flowers, the stream narrowed and Johnny Gorai became more sullen.
By the end of the third day I calculated that we were some thirty miles inland from the coast. Here we arrived at a waterfall and were forced to abandon the canoes.
Making up light packs we pushed ahead the next day, following the bank of the river. The going was slower here, but the change from the cramped dugouts was welcome. The islander led the way, trying vainly to keep his precious coat from the grasp of thorns.
It was near midday when we came on the fire. It was a heap of ashes, at the bole of a large breadfruit tree, cold and evidently wet by rains. But Stuart was as triumphant as if we had found a door-post of his lost city.
“This is beyond the territory of the coast natives, Haskins,” he cried. “The fire must have been made by the ‘small fellow boys.’”
“So you believe,” I asked, “there are actually dwarfs hereabouts?”
“Something of the kind,” he said gravely. “And I can give a guess as to why their village has never been found. Certain races of stunted people exist in the interior of Africa, and as a rule they are tree-climbing men. They are accustomed to make their way about in the trees.”
I admit this remark caused me to glance up at the network of branches overhead. Beyond a lazy and beautiful tree snake or two I, of course, saw nothing.
“The dwarfs of Santo,” continued Stuart, “have no village. I think we will find that they live in caves underground, or in trees. That means they must be a very shy people—probably harmless.”
“I hope so,” I agreed. “But the shyest tribes are sometimes most apt to pin a poisoned arrow in the neck of a visitor.”
By this time we were among what Johnny Gorai called the “top-side mountains” which rose so steeply on either bank of the river that we were obliged to leave the shore and climb almost sheer precipices. The islander no longer led the way, and I let Stuart choose the going, thinking that in this way he would be more quickly tired of the fruitless venture.
I think he was already beginning to be so. More than once I caught a moody look in his brown eyes as he peered down into the mesh of treetops and up at the luxuriant slopes above us. As we came to a turn in the pig trail we were following, he set down his pack, shaking the perspiration from his arms, and motioned me to his side.
“Ready to—make camp?” I suggested, being more than ready to do the same myself.
“Look there,” he said, pointing.
No, it was not the city of Don Quiros—not even a timber of it. Nor was it one of the “small fellow boys.” It was a woman seated on a breadfruit tree, watching us curiously.
I slipped off my pack, and stared back at her. She was not a woman of the coast tribes of Santo. And she did not look like a white woman, although she was dressed in a slip of calico, bound around the waist with woven grass. She was barefoot. Her hair was gathered in coils secured by a kind of tenril vine, with flowers on it, and it was the color of sun-touched bronze. It was curly, but certainly not kinky.
She watched us steadily, dark eyes wide with curiosity, slim figure tense, like an antelope half minded to stay and watch, half decided to flee. Stuart whistled softly, and her gaze went instantly to him.
Probably by our artificial standards, the woman we came upon at the bend of the pig trail would not have been called beautiful. Her face and bare knees were scarred by thorns and she lacked the pink-and-white complexion which is so prized in the European cities. Yet there was a charm about her slim person and alert, appealing eyes. I felt it, and I believe Jack Stuart did as well.
Johnny Gorai was staring at her, making a queer clucking noise which drew my attention. I saw that his gaze had shifted and was searching the surrounding treetops. His wrinkled face told a plain story. He was not, it seemed, surprised at seeing the girl. Rather, he was looking around for possible companions. That is the impression I received, and it proved I was not much mistaken.
Life is curious in many ways. Here we had come, at some risk, to find a legendary city and a tribe of dwarfs and we found a young girl becomingly dressed in European calico.
“She isn’t a dwarf, Jack?” I smiled.
“No,” he said, “but what is she?”
Our voices, instead of startling her, seemed to attract her, for she rose lightly to her feet and came toward us. Actually slipped up to arm’s reach of Stuart and ran her hand lightly over the gun he carried—that and the week’s growth of beard he wore.
“I would have shaved, old man,” he laughed, “if I had known what we were going to meet.”
I had been studying the strange girl. Clearly she did not understand what we said—which was not to be wondered at—and as clearly had not seen men of our kind before. Like a very young child, she investigated the striking features of her visitors—the shining barrel of the gun.
Gorai she passed over with a glance. She had seen his kind before, I thought.
“What kind fellow this Mary?” I asked him.
Johnny Gorai shook his beflowered head vigorously. At the same time a crafty gleam crept into his faded eyes.
“What for Johnny Gorai know ’em good fellow Mary?” he asked in the bêche de mer which passed with him for English.
“Don’t lie to me,” I said. “You know ’em this fellow woman—or you’ve heard of her. Who is she?”
The old scoundrel understood me; but he pretended he did not. The strange woman, he protested, was unknown to the Santo coast tribes.
“Talk to her, then,” I told him.
Johnny Gorai clucked away at the girl, who watched him curiously. She made no response, yet I thought—and Stuart agreed with me—that she understood. It struck me that she might know what he said, without being able to answer. The old beggar amused her, for presently she burst into a peal of laughter in which Stuart joined sympathetically.
“She sees the humor in the chap’s dress, I believe,” smiled the lad. “Evidently naval uniforms are not the fashion in the mountains of Santo.”
“How about the calico, then?” I asked him. “She must have traded that dress from the coast tribes. Yet she certainly isn’t a native.”
It was rather a puzzle, and we were long in solving it. Here was a girl, perhaps twenty years of age, perhaps more. She acted more like an animal of the forest than a human being. Yet she had no fear of us. We camped where we were that afternoon, making a good dinner of fruit, bread and tea. At the boy’s urging, our visitor shared it with us, and I must say she did not need much coaxing.
Her table manners were original, but she did not mouth her food like Johnny Gorai. In fact she seemed more interested in us and what we did than in the meal. When it was finished we got out our pipes and the girl made herself comfortable on our blankets, watching us as she always did.
Johnny Gorai, who seemed ill at ease, came over to me and pointed at our visitor.
“No good this white Mary stop along here, Master Haskins,” he said vehemently. “You send her away—eh? You send her along, plenty quick.”
“Maybe,” I answered. “And maybe not. We’d like a change from your company. Why shouldn’t she stay?”
He would not say, except that it would be “plenty bad” if she did. The beggar knew something about her, something which he was unwilling to tell. And as I watched him, I began to realize what that was. Johnny Gorai was afraid of the companions of the girl, whoever and whatever they might be. He kept a keen outlook into the bush. I saw nothing. But once or twice the girl lifted her head attentively, as though she had caught sounds we did not hear. Later we came to know that her hearing was very acute.
The same thought must have been in the mind of Jack Stuart as in mine, for presently he turned to me.
“Do you think, Haskins,” he said slowly, as if feeling for his words, “that this girl belongs to the people of Don Quiros? She might be a descendant of the white men who came here to found the new Jerusalem.”
The idea had already crossed my mind.
“I don’t think so, Jack,” I answered. “In the first place it is hard to believe that a group of white men could have lived in the interior of Santo for nearly three hundred years without being heard of. And if members of the Quiros party are still alive and the woman is one of them, why is the sight of a white man strange to her?”
He was forced to admit the truth of what I said. Yet, like the boy he was, he did not like to give up his idea.
“She looks as if her parents might have been Spaniards, Haskins. And the rest of the party might have died.”
“After dropping out of sight for nine generations?”
“Remember, they came to immolate themselves in the island—to found a kind of religious paradise.”
“The coast tribes would have heard of them.”
“Not if they shunned the interior.”
Stuart stuck to his belief more obstinately because I did not share it with him.
“When you have lived below the line long enough to guess—you can’t know—what’s going on in the mind of an islander. Jack, you’ll get to realize that a tribe of niggers is aware of everything that happens on an island.”
“If she could only talk to us,” he exclaimed and turned to the girl. She was gone.
During our talk she had slipped from the blankets into the shadows of the twilight bush. Undoubtedly Johnny Gorai had seen her go, but we had not. She had left us without as much sound as a plantain leave falling to earth. Stuart stared. Then he whistled.
“To my mind, Jack,” I told him, “Johnny Gorai is the one who can tell us about this girl. He has seen her or heard of her before. Likewise, her presence makes him uneasy. I don’t think he is afraid of her, but of something about her. Get him to talk, old fellow, and he will solve your mystery.”
With that I turned in, being tired. The last thing I heard before drifting off into honest slumber was the lad arguing with our wrinkled sinner, who was insisting he knew nothing about the young woman who had joined our party.